The Tsar Peter House

This little wooden house hardly inspires visions of Peter the Great but he stayed her several times. The house was built in 1632 for a labourer. It became famous in 1697 when Peter the Great came to visit to learn about Dutch shipbuilding. He insisted on staying with blacksmith and craftsman Gerrit Kist whom he had met in Moscow. He would stay the week and word quickly spread that the Tsar of Russia was staying there.

Peter would return in 1698 and he took his wife Catherine with him when he returned for the third time in 1717. Around 1818, King William I of the Netherlands gifted the house to his daughter-in-law and great-great-granddaughter of Peter – Anna Pavlovna of Russia. In turn, her son King William III of the Netherlands gifted it to Tsar Alexander III in 1886. In 1895, a stone cover was built around the house to protect it, on the orders of Tsar Nicholas II. In 1948, the descendants of Alexander III officially renounced ownership of the house and it is currently part of the Zaans Museum and can be visited.

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